Dr.-Ing. Michael Mertz – Encapsulation of enzymes

Dr.-Ing. Michael Mertz – Encapsulation of enzymes in the lumen of polymer vesicles


The biocatalytic activity of nano-scale enzyme-membrane reactors has so far been limited by the generally low encapsulation efficiency of enzymes in polymer-based vesicles. The formation of stable vesicles is only possible if low concentrations of polymer and enzymes are used, resulting in low biocatalyst loading of Blaue Kugel mit Einschnitt auf der rechten Seite und grafischer Darstellung von roten, grünen und blauen Enzymen darin.the vesicles.

To increase the biocatalytic activity of each vesicle, we aim at developing new techniques to encapsulate enzymes by active association to the vesicles. This should allow us to increase the vesicle loading without the necessity to use high enzyme concentrations during vesicle formation. In this research project, different strategies for the active loading will be characterized. The best approach will be applied to a nano-scale enzyme-membrane reactor for the multi-step synthesis of CMP-N-acetylneuraminic acid.

This project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research Basistechnologien (Nachwuchsgruppe: UniComp – Funktionelle Erweiterung polymerbasierter Reaktionskompartimente für Multienzym-synthesen, project number 031B0221.)

Publications:

Mertz M, Castiglione K (2021): Increased protein encapsulation in polymersomes with hydrophobic membrane anchoring peptides in a scalable process. It J Mol Sci 22(13), 7134.

Mertz M, Golombek F, Boye S, Moreno S, Castiglione K (2021): Fast and effective chromatographic separation of polymersomes from proteins by multimodal chromatography. J Chrom B, 1162, 122459.

Obst F., Mertz M., Mehner PJ., Beck A., Castiglione K., Richter A., Voit B., Appelhans D. (2021): Enzymatic Synthesis of Sialic Acids in Microfluidics to Overcome Cross-Inhibitions and Substrate Supply Limitations. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 13 (41), 49433-49444.